Even the mythology of heathen nations retains the idea of an atonement that either has been, or is to be made for mankind. Fantastic, distorted, confused; buried under the rubbish of savage superstition it may be, but it nevertheless exists. So easily traced, so distinct is this feature of heathen mythology, that some writers have endeavored to prove that the gospel plan of redemption was derived from heathen mythology. Whereas the fact is that the Gospel was understood and extensively preached in the earliest ages;[C] men retained in their tradition a knowledge of those principles or parts of them, and however much they may have been distorted, traces of them may still be found in nearly all the mythologies of the world.
[Footnote C: See Pearl of Great Price, Writings of Moses, pp. 12 to 31. Gal iii, 8. Heb. iv, 2, in connection with latter part of chap iii. I Cor. X, 1-4. Mediation and Atonement by the late Prest. John Taylor —Appendix.]
The prophets of the Jewish scriptures answer the foregoing question in the affirmative. The writers of the New Testament make Christ's Atonement the principal theme of their discourses and epistles. The Book of Mormon, speaking as the voice of an entire continent of people, whose prophets and righteous men sought and found God, testifies to the same great fact. The revelations of God as given through the Prophet Joseph Smith are replete with passages confirming this doctrine, and lastly, the Saints who have received this doctrine and walked in obedience to the laws of heaven, bear testimony that the Spirit of God has borne record to their spirits that the Atonement of Christ is a grand reality.
This evidence is more than sufficient, it seems to me, to establish the fact of the atonement beyond the possibility of a doubt; and if there are some things in it not within the scope of our comprehension, still there is sufficient foundation for our glorious hope of eternal life through its power; for the evidence proving the fact of that Atonement is sufficient, wanting nothing, either in quality or quantity.
The Atonement is not the only fact which man accepts without being able to comprehend it. Such facts exist all about us. For example, here stands a row of trees; here is the plum tree, the peach, pear, apple, cherry and the apricot. They send their roots down into the same soil; their fibres become interlaced in it; and yet each tree has the mysterious power to draw from the same soil the substances which produce its own peculiar fruit. So it is throughout the vegetable kingdom. But how it is that the peach tree produces the peach, while the plum tree, from the same soil, produces the plum; or how one plant produces wheat, while another at its side produces barley, we cannot tell. But there is the fact; and how stupid would he be considered who rejected the fact, because, forsooth, he cannot understand the mysterious powers or forces which produce it!
As Bishop Watson remarks to Sir Edward Gibbon, in the letters which comprise his Apology for Christianity:—"In physics you cannot comprehend the primary cause of anything: not of the light by which you see; nor of the elasticity of the air by which you hear; nor of the fire by which you are warmed. In physiology you cannot tell what first gave motion to the heart, nor what continues it, nor why its motion is less voluntary than the lungs; nor why you are able to move your arms to the right or left by a simple volition; * * * nor comprehend the principle by which your body was at first formed, nor by which it is sustained, nor by which it will be reduced to earth." The list might be indefinitely extended, for the facts in nature which are incomprehensible are more numerous than those of revelation. And yet those who insist that all the facts connected with revelation should be of such a character that they are perfectly comprehended, refuse not to accept the facts in nature because they are incomprehensible. Why cannot they treat with equal fairness the facts of revelation and leave it to time and further revelation to make that clear which is now obscure?
[CHAPTER IV.]
GENERAL SALVATION.
Unbelievers delight to represent God, the great Law Giver, as unspeakably cruel in demanding such an Atonement as Christ made for the salvation of the children of men. But let it be borne in mind that he who made the Atonement did so voluntarily. Testifying to his disciples respecting the matter he says: "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father."[A]
[Footnote A: John x. 17,18.]
When his enemies gathered about him,—a former friend betraying him with a kiss,—and Peter prepared to defend him with the sword, he chided him for his rashness, commanding him to put up his sword, and added: "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?"[B]